Selectmen seek mooring guidelines

Brittany Lyte

Updated 10:08 pm, Thursday, July 25, 2013

Greenwich leaders took a small step toward filling gaping holes in the town's harbor management protocol Thursday by agreeing to implement yet-to-be-written guidelines for relocating and removing moorings.

The Board of Selectmen assigned Assistant Town Attorney Aamina Ahmad to draft a procedure for use by the town and Ian MacMillan, the state-appointed harbormaster, when notifying residents their moorings are obstructing a waterway.

There are now no town-endorsed guidelines the harbormaster can follow when dealing with abandoned, illegal or badly placed moorings.

"I need a procedure that I can trust you guys to back me up on 100 percent on issues like, `What do I do when I find a mooring that's an obstruction in the water and it's been abandoned?' " MacMillan told the Board of Selectmen.

At issue are two conflicting accounts of how Greenwich waters should be managed.

State statue anoints the harbormaster as the sole judge of issues pertaining to moorings. Greenwich officials, however, point to two special state legislative acts from the late 1940s and early 1950s that designate the town as the chief regulator of its waters.

Whether the powers given to Greenwich by these acts take precedence over state law is ambiguous. And while state statute lays out the harbormaster's powers, it does not articulate how they should be enforced.

The town has sought guidance from the state on the issue, which has developed into a duel between state and local players. Personality clashes between MacMillan and some town officials are at the center of the controversy.

At Thursday morning's Board of Selectmen meeting, Selectman Drew Marzullo summed up the conflict: "Like him or not like him -- Ian -- he is the harbormaster."

In an email, Drake Christopher, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's legal counsel, urged MacMillan and town leaders to cooperate. He said he will recommend that Malloy appoint a new harbormaster if the two entities cannot get along.

"It is my understanding that in most municipalities, enforcement is spelled out in a harbor management plan, which Greenwich doesn't have," Christopher said in the email. "In the absence of one, I continue to believe that the best course of action is to figure out how he is to present these issues to local authorities and who will determine how the town will respond."

He added, "I encourage the town to respect (MacMillan's) authority and take whatever action is appropriate to enforce his lawful orders."

The Board of Selectmen has scheduled a public hearing for 7:30 p.m. Monday in the Town Hall Meeting Room, for discussion about creation of a Harbor Commission that would draft a harbor management plan for Greenwich.

As for moorings, Ahmad recommended the town form its own guidelines for dealing with relocation and removal matters and then rely on the collective expertise of the harbormaster, the state Department of Transportation and the Board of Selectmen when deciding disputes.

For example, if the harbormaster deems a mooring an obstruction and another party disagrees, the issue should be settled through the joint knowledge of these three entities.

The need for a method of settling disputes is not a hypothetical.

Greenwich police felt MacMillan had exceeded his authority last year when he ordered the removal of a mooring that sat in the channel maintained by the Windrose Way Association on Mead Point.